On July 13, a Superior Court judge in Connecticut ruled against eight same-sex couples who were seeking the right to marry. In her ruling, the judge said the state’s law that allows civil unions already grants same-sex couples the same rights as married couples.

On July 14, the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated Nebraska’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. Seventy percent of Nebraska voters approved the ban in 2000.

On July 26, Washington state’s Supreme Court ruled that lawmakers have the power to restrict marriage to the union of one man and one woman, and upheld the state’s 1998 Defense of Marriage Act.

Those who believe in judicial restraint welcomed the rulings. In these cases, the judges properly decided not to impose their ideological predilections on the public. But someone had to lose, and it is only just that it was the sexual engineers.